MemoryCardZoo.com – Micro SD Cards

Memory Card Zoo is an online shop offering wide range of memory cards, bags, batteries, headphones, and accessories. Based in Guernsey, they carry 100% genuine UK stock. Worldwide shipping is also competitive – it costs only £4-7.50 to ship to Singapore.

This week, I received a micro SD card from them. It claims to be indestructible: water proof, shock proof, and magnet proof.

Some people might choose to abuse the card to test its limits, but I think that kind of treatment is not practical in real life. So I choose to put the micro SD card through reasonable life tests, as follows: – Washing machine test (water proof) – Drop test (shock proof) – Speaker proximity test (magnet proof)

Washing Machine Test The most common accident on getting the card wet is when you forget to take the memory card out of your attire pocket. So for water proof test, I placed the memory card into my jeans pocket and put the jeans into the washine machine for a wash.

Result: Pass. In fact, I also dumped the card into a cup of water. The card still works after drying.

Drop Test This is another common accident which could damage the card. For my test, I simply drop the micro SD card on the hard surface – many times over and over again. Here’s a “dramatisation video” (shot at 160 fps).

Result: Pass. The card suffered no visible damages, since it is so small. You can’t say the same if you were to drop a CompactFlash card. At the very least, the corners would be dented, no?

Speaker Proximity Test To test for magnet proof, I decided to place the micro SD card near to my home speakers and played some music loudly so that the speaker magnets can attempt to cause an affect on the card. I cannot think of any other home devices with higher magnetism than speakers, so if you do, please let me know and I will gladly do this test again.

Result: Pass. I even did a low-level format to see if there are any damaged sectors.

I believe most of the micro SD cards sold today should be able to sustain such abuse due to its solid state nature, so such claims on being indestructible are merely marketing tactics. The real test should be whether the memory components can stand thousand of times of read-write states.